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Fighting Fantasy #70
Secrets of Salamonis
PART STORY, PART GAME - PURE ADVENTURE!
Do YOU have what it takes to become a hero?
Travelling to the ancient city of Salamonis to make your fortune, YOU must decide whether to join the Strongarms guarding the merchant caravans that criss-cross Allansia, or study at the famous Halls of Learning. Will you enter Bu Fon Fen in search of Cauldronweed, or rid King Salamon's Mine of the pests that plague it? Will you bring Cardinal Zyn to justice, or set off in search of the horn of the Black Unicorn? And just who is the Shivering Man, and what does he have to do with the mystery of the screaming sky?
It is down to YOU to uncover the secrets of Salamonis!
Do YOU have what it takes to become a hero?
Travelling to the ancient city of Salamonis to make your fortune, YOU must decide whether to join the Strongarms guarding the merchant caravans that criss-cross Allansia, or study at the famous Halls of Learning. Will you enter Bu Fon Fen in search of Cauldronweed, or rid King Salamon's Mine of the pests that plague it? Will you bring Cardinal Zyn to justice, or set off in search of the horn of the Black Unicorn? And just who is the Shivering Man, and what does he have to do with the mystery of the screaming sky?
It is down to YOU to uncover the secrets of Salamonis!
368 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2022
1 person is currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Steve Jackson
67 books156 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Steve Jackson (born 20 May 1951) is a British game designer, writer, and game reviewer, who is often confused with the American game designer of the same name.
Along with Ian Livingstone, he is the creator of the Fighting Fantasy books. The US Jackson also wrote three books in the Fighting Fantasy series, which adds to the confusion, especially as these books were simply credited to "Steve Jackson" without any acknowledgement that it was a different person.
See also:
Steve Jackson, US game designer
Steve Jackson, author of works on crime
Steve Jackson, Scottish thriller writer
Steve Jackson (born 20 May 1951) is a British game designer, writer, and game reviewer, who is often confused with the American game designer of the same name.
Along with Ian Livingstone, he is the creator of the Fighting Fantasy books. The US Jackson also wrote three books in the Fighting Fantasy series, which adds to the confusion, especially as these books were simply credited to "Steve Jackson" without any acknowledgement that it was a different person.
See also:
Steve Jackson, US game designer
Steve Jackson, author of works on crime
Steve Jackson, Scottish thriller writer
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 3, 2022
This is a really top-notch entry in the series, with some first-rate worldbuilding. It is a good deal more forgiving than the "one true path" approach of the older books, which is no bad thing, and the artwork is (to my mind, at least) much easier on the eye than the style that has been adopted in recent times. One very welcome development is that there is much more freedom to choose your own path than there has traditionally been in the series.
Overall, excellent stuff.
Overall, excellent stuff.
January 18, 2025
A hangulata és a világépítése klassz volt, de az nagyon be tud ütni a végén, hogy azon múlik a befejezés, hogy teljesen random fegyvereket vagy eszközöket megvettél-e, illetve milyen sorrendben mentél a küldetésekben.
October 16, 2023
The other half of the 40th Anniversary specials (alongside
Shadow of the Giants
) this is the stronger of the pair though it trades off some degree of whimsy. Both are cut from the same cloth, though. Fantasy world offering lots of tributes to old stories with extended periods spent in a fantasy city all leading up to a confrontation that requires you to have not only figured out paths were generally dead ends but also to have worked out a shopping list and the gold to achieve it.
Steven Jackson and Jonathan Green find a few new ways to re-use old tricks (finding passages by adding up numbers, sometimes learned by clues over multiple passages) as well as add in some mechanics that help to keep things feeling a little fresh. Borrowing from Advanced Fighting Fantasy, there is now a way to grow in game. In fact, stats are essentially not random (stat loss due to bad rolls notwithstanding). You start a given amount of Skill, Stamina, and Luck and you increase these through a particular segment of the game.* This means you can plan out certain segments a lot more precisely. Another borrow from AFF are the Special Skills that can give you bonuses different path options. They are not balanced, mind. One, "Lucky," means you win all Test Your Luck rolls without ever losing Luck. Having it increases your power in combat a lot, allows you to take certain risky paths, and generally saves you a lot of bother. Others might only show up in one or two places and usually not in a way that greatly helps. Lucky basically trumps all. Another one has an entire page of the book dedicated to it and shows up in several places. I do not think it is required, but it helps a lot.
After a first segment where you get your feet under you and have to test out a handful of branching possibilities to have both the required amount to actually start (one dead-end occurs you if you don't have enough money, for instance), you then go on a series of jobs. The first play through or two, this part is actually a lot of fun. It feels like they are playing at a more Fabled Lands style mechanic of free-form adventuring. It, of course, is a lie in that there are certain jobs you have to take in order to achieve certain specific goals (the order is not set in stone, but some orders work a bit better than others). You can 100% miss the required three jobs (out of seven, I think) in the time limit given you.
Eventually, you will have to do some shopping and like Shadow of the Giants you will need to basically have foresight to know precisely what you need before you need it. It goes back to my thoughts in that review about a certain "fake" economy of information. You are expected to pay through a few false leads to learn real ones, but then when playing the real ones there is no way to truly justify knowing these things outside of "magic".
Time is a weird concept in this game. You have "six days" after the first section to prep for the final section but some jobs take weeks and other take a day or so (no matter how long they are, you basically come back one checkmark later, so why not use checkmarks like Fabled Lands?). What's more, sleeping overnight in some places heals up some stamina but having jobs where you are in leisurely travel heals nothing. It is the kind of thing that could have been polished a bit to make it feel more organic. Furthermore, there is at least one section you can end up doing twice because the triggers were not "coded" properly. Options sometimes strangely dry up, including one segment needed for the above psychic shopping trip despite there being no good reason in game.** Which is more a shame for this title than some others in the Fighting Fantasy series because while all of them eventually boil down to playing the game and slightly ignoring the book, this one could have been a bit more. Maybe.
That is not to say that it is un-fun to actually solve this game. The ability to much more customize a character is welcome and some of the solutions require a few unusual choices. I also really liked some of the easter eggs (in one branch, you end off going to become the hero of another gamebook which is an odd "dead end" that might be fun to play as written...playing that gamebook with this character's stats). The dream sequence that is the first half of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain might have been a bit much (it accounts for many of the "extra passages" that make this gamebook a bit bigger than average) but it could make a nice reverse easter egg if someone starts playing the games because of this one.
If you hate One True Path style mechanics you will eventually rage at this one. If you like or love Fighting Fantasy I feel like you will like or love this one.
Four stars. Probably more like four and a half stars with one half star removed because this one let itself down a bit by being really good but also it made me sad to let go of the immersion. That being said, maybe half a star back for the lovely Russ Nicholson tribute (a character you encounter is Ruznik Ullsen (ruz nikullsen), which I missed the first time through).
===
* There is only one segment that tells you to increase them but is unclear if you can increase them past this since the rules given make no sense at that time (you can at most increase your stats a total of about 4 points but it tells you to not go above +6, for instance). Since some other aspects of the book are a bit glitchy, I would personally say that you can probably do it during any downtime to maintain the more classic tabletop feeling this one is trying to play with.
** The closest reason why this one scene, which is vital, is lost after your first pass through might be related to a slightly recurring tax collector "joke" which in other gamebook series might have led to more sidequests or interesting things but here just adds a tiny amount of stress to the economy.
Steven Jackson and Jonathan Green find a few new ways to re-use old tricks (finding passages by adding up numbers, sometimes learned by clues over multiple passages) as well as add in some mechanics that help to keep things feeling a little fresh. Borrowing from Advanced Fighting Fantasy, there is now a way to grow in game. In fact, stats are essentially not random (stat loss due to bad rolls notwithstanding). You start a given amount of Skill, Stamina, and Luck and you increase these through a particular segment of the game.* This means you can plan out certain segments a lot more precisely. Another borrow from AFF are the Special Skills that can give you bonuses different path options. They are not balanced, mind. One, "Lucky," means you win all Test Your Luck rolls without ever losing Luck. Having it increases your power in combat a lot, allows you to take certain risky paths, and generally saves you a lot of bother. Others might only show up in one or two places and usually not in a way that greatly helps. Lucky basically trumps all. Another one has an entire page of the book dedicated to it and shows up in several places. I do not think it is required, but it helps a lot.
After a first segment where you get your feet under you and have to test out a handful of branching possibilities to have both the required amount to actually start (one dead-end occurs you if you don't have enough money, for instance), you then go on a series of jobs. The first play through or two, this part is actually a lot of fun. It feels like they are playing at a more Fabled Lands style mechanic of free-form adventuring. It, of course, is a lie in that there are certain jobs you have to take in order to achieve certain specific goals (the order is not set in stone, but some orders work a bit better than others). You can 100% miss the required three jobs (out of seven, I think) in the time limit given you.
Eventually, you will have to do some shopping and like Shadow of the Giants you will need to basically have foresight to know precisely what you need before you need it. It goes back to my thoughts in that review about a certain "fake" economy of information. You are expected to pay through a few false leads to learn real ones, but then when playing the real ones there is no way to truly justify knowing these things outside of "magic".
Time is a weird concept in this game. You have "six days" after the first section to prep for the final section but some jobs take weeks and other take a day or so (no matter how long they are, you basically come back one checkmark later, so why not use checkmarks like Fabled Lands?). What's more, sleeping overnight in some places heals up some stamina but having jobs where you are in leisurely travel heals nothing. It is the kind of thing that could have been polished a bit to make it feel more organic. Furthermore, there is at least one section you can end up doing twice because the triggers were not "coded" properly. Options sometimes strangely dry up, including one segment needed for the above psychic shopping trip despite there being no good reason in game.** Which is more a shame for this title than some others in the Fighting Fantasy series because while all of them eventually boil down to playing the game and slightly ignoring the book, this one could have been a bit more. Maybe.
That is not to say that it is un-fun to actually solve this game. The ability to much more customize a character is welcome and some of the solutions require a few unusual choices. I also really liked some of the easter eggs (in one branch, you end off going to become the hero of another gamebook which is an odd "dead end" that might be fun to play as written...playing that gamebook with this character's stats). The dream sequence that is the first half of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain might have been a bit much (it accounts for many of the "extra passages" that make this gamebook a bit bigger than average) but it could make a nice reverse easter egg if someone starts playing the games because of this one.
If you hate One True Path style mechanics you will eventually rage at this one. If you like or love Fighting Fantasy I feel like you will like or love this one.
Four stars. Probably more like four and a half stars with one half star removed because this one let itself down a bit by being really good but also it made me sad to let go of the immersion. That being said, maybe half a star back for the lovely Russ Nicholson tribute (a character you encounter is Ruznik Ullsen (ruz nikullsen), which I missed the first time through).
===
* There is only one segment that tells you to increase them but is unclear if you can increase them past this since the rules given make no sense at that time (you can at most increase your stats a total of about 4 points but it tells you to not go above +6, for instance). Since some other aspects of the book are a bit glitchy, I would personally say that you can probably do it during any downtime to maintain the more classic tabletop feeling this one is trying to play with.
** The closest reason why this one scene, which is vital, is lost after your first pass through might be related to a slightly recurring tax collector "joke" which in other gamebook series might have led to more sidequests or interesting things but here just adds a tiny amount of stress to the economy.
September 24, 2022
What a great book: 4 stars. It's probably the greatest gamebook design and gameplay I've seen, with multiple ways to progress and workarounds for various challenges. A truly epic adventure well executed, with great art, lots of variety, and plenty of callbacks that evoke the illustrations of prior books. It's truly a labour of love.
The only thing I would add are a few strong supporting female characters; while true to the source material, the boyish machismo is dated, particularly for modern young adult fiction. That aside, I highly recommend this gamebook to anyone interested in the genre. It's much more forgiving than the originals, and a really fun puzzle adventure to solve.
The only thing I would add are a few strong supporting female characters; while true to the source material, the boyish machismo is dated, particularly for modern young adult fiction. That aside, I highly recommend this gamebook to anyone interested in the genre. It's much more forgiving than the originals, and a really fun puzzle adventure to solve.
July 4, 2025
Really enjoyed this one. It includes some extra aspects of gameplay that build effectively into a series of quests you need to complete before the final mission.
This last part is easy enough if you have the right items, but getting them is a challenge, and requires doing the right quests in the right order, and building up enough gold to acquire everything. I eventually solved it with a bit of help, once I'd worked out the basics of what needs doing.
Lots of fun and value in this one.
This last part is easy enough if you have the right items, but getting them is a challenge, and requires doing the right quests in the right order, and building up enough gold to acquire everything. I eventually solved it with a bit of help, once I'd worked out the basics of what needs doing.
Lots of fun and value in this one.
May 26, 2023
A nostalgia trip. Some interesting mechanics, particularly spellcasting where you have to convert letters into numbers and add them up. It tries to bring open world mechanics into the gamebook and is partially successful.
January 25, 2023
Great stuff!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews